efore performed as
secretly as possible: in the middle of the night the coffin was carried
to the burial-place of the Fleury family; the old steward, his son
Basile, Victoire, and the good father confessor, were the only persons
present. It is necessary to mention this, because the facts were
afterwards misrepresented.

CHAPTER XIV

"The character is lost!
Her head adorned with lappets, pinned aloft,
And ribands streaming gay, superbly raised,
Indebted to some smart wig-weaver's hand
For more than half the tresses it sustains."--COWPER.

Upon her return to Paris, Victoire felt melancholy; but she exerted
herself as much as possible in her usual occupation; finding that
employment and the consciousness of doing her duty were the best remedies
for sorrow.

One day as she was busy settling Madame Feuillot's accounts a servant
came into the shop and inquired for Mademoiselle Victoire: he presented
her a note, which she found rather difficult to decipher. It was signed
by her cousin Manon, who desired to see Victoire at her hotel. "_Her
hotel_!" repeated Victoire with astonishment. The servant assured her
that one of the finest hotels in Paris belonged to his lady, and that he
was commissioned to show her the way to it. Victoire found her cousin in
a magnificent house, which had formerly belonged to the Prince de Salms.
Manon, dressed in the disgusting, indecent extreme of the mode, was
seated under a richly-fringed canopy. She burst into a loud laugh as
Victoire entered.

"You look just as much astonished as I expected," cried she. "Great
changes have happened since I saw you last--I always told you, Victoire,
I knew the world better than you did. What has come of all your
schooling, and your mighty goodness, and your gratitude truly? Your
patroness is banished and a beggar, and you a drudge in the shop of a
_brodeuse_, who makes you work your fingers to the bone, no doubt. Now
you shall see the difference. Let me show you my house; you know it was
formerly the hotel of the Prince de Salms, he that was guillotined the
other day; but you know nothing, for you have been out of Paris this
month, I understand. Then I must tell you that my friend Villeneuf has
acquired an immense fortune! by assignats made in the course of a
fortnight. I say an immense fortune! and has bought this fine house. Now
do you begin to understand?"

"I do not clearly know whom you mean by 'your friend Villene